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First Skyrim playthrough - Mod list?
RhumGoggles
Member Posts: 3
in PC Gaming
I am playing Skyrim for the first time and would be grateful if you guys could recommend me a list of Mods to make the experience great. I think i would prefer mainly visual mods because i would like to keep the essential core gamplay of Skyrim.
Thanks in advance 
Comments
I am glad you asked this - I was just going through my Steam library and realized I still haven't played through Skyrim - and was wondering pretty much the exact same thing.
I have no idea about the mods, I'm hoping to see what answer you get - just posting to let you know your not alone
Go to Youtube and watch Gopher's excellent modding series for beginners.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QinA4qD6hXM
In these videos he will show you the best mods to use to get the best visual and play experience from Skyrim and explain how they all install. It's a great guide to get you started modding.
I hope you are going to use nexus mod manager its a great programme for adding mods and such. I have played skyrim for a while and I prefer to just add visuals and not many additions to gameplay mechanic changes and what not here is my list.
Weapons and armour fixes
Sounds of skyrim - The Wilds
Sky UI - this is a Must, just amazing ui changer and even has a sorter/search options
shadow striping fix in doors and out
remove interior fog / optional I just dont like the fog inside dungeons unless its floor mist.
Move it Damit for NPC compaion followers / I hate when NPC dont back up handy mod.
Enhanced Blood Textures
Convenient Horses / love this mod comes with all sorts of armours for horses and stuff also god mode which might ruin imersion just dont enable that if you dont like god mode horse.
Birds and Flocks / more wild life is always better.
Better Dialogue Controls / just improves little chat options
ABT Arrows and Bolts
A Quality world map
Lush Trees and Grass / Heavy on the pc if you have a good rig try this.
I do have some others turned off for some reason or another..
Pure Waters
Real Vision ENB,,, nice mod but I think skyrim was good enough after the HD texture pack update. but this does add some nice cinematic lighting to the game.
open citys in skyrim, I think I decided that I didnt like dragons in towns =D
I have a pre-made collection of mostly graphic enchancement and extra aditions I let my steam friends use, but I made it public for everyone who cares. All these mods work together very well, so just pick and choose what you want I guess. But you're more than welcome to use it.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=278657346
The mods you may want to EXCLUDE for your first playthrough is:
Bag of holding
Azure Sword
High Jump
Get yourself one of the fully custom voiced followers. There are some very good ones. Vilja is the most popular. There is a new one called Sofia who is supposed to be full of sarcasm and wit. I use Arissa and Inigo.
for whatever reason, follower mods seem to be split into two categories, so look at both pages:
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/searchresults/?src_order=1&src_sort=0&src_view=1&src_tab=1&src_language=0&src_cat=96&src_showadult=1&ignoreCF=0&page=1&pUp=1
and
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/searchresults/?src_order=1&src_sort=0&src_view=1&src_tab=1&src_language=0&src_cat=66&ignoreCF=0&page=1&pUp=1
Also, you must must must get the unofficial patches. (one for Skyrim and one for each DLC depending)
they are community based bug fix patches that correct many issues in the game.
As far as core game play. That may not be the best approach. Bethesda makes a great game, but modders make it better. There are many mods that change the gameplay for the better.
Here is a page of Mods ordered by endorsements.
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/searchresults/?src_order=1&src_sort=0&src_view=1&src_tab=1&src_language=0&src_showadult=1&ignoreCF=0&page=1&pUp=1
But I do enjoy reading though mods individually and see what they offer and decide if that's something I want to experience in my game.
One of the things I did myself was to alter the Shouts. There are other mods out there that do that too, because I found it was supposed to be a major theme of this version of Elder Scrolls. The entire theme revolves around the return of the dragons and yet, the whole system feels too gimmicky and situational, so I used Creation Kit to make my own edits to the system.
I would take these ones as must haves
Interesting NPCs
Immersive Armours
Dynamic Vampire Appearance
Epic Gameplay Overhaul
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/52487/?
They're all visual but some add some great content
http://wiki.step-project.com/Main_Page
Good collection of mods. Keeps true to the original feel while improving the experience.
If I may suggest, play though it once unmodded. Find out what bugged you and what you think needed improving.
If you enjoy having followers, then look for more followers through mods.
If you want more quests, look for additional quest mods.
If you like anime style weapons, seek out those mods.
There are so many mods for Skyrim that trying to pinpoint what you like and do not like would be very tough
I also echo the advice above that suggests using Nexus Mod Manager and the Nexus site (Skyrim Nexus) for easy installation.
One set of mods I can highly recommend from the start are the "Unofficial Patches" that fix many bugs in the game that Bethesda neglected and the respective DLCs.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
I got about 1000 hours into skyrim, and i havent made it past lvl 15 haha. Anyways I will warn you about visual mods, even with a 290x over clocked, the game can crash due to some of those mods. Also i wouldent recommend playin gthe game stock, its really terrible with out any mods. As for the visuals though, just go with the top 100 mods on nexus and you will get the good ones. Make sure you have atleast 3gbs of video ram.
You will need a combat mod, if you arent into spending hours and hours and hours, and then some more trying to get it perfect, I recommend going with Skyrim redone, or requiem, go requiem if you want a more realistic experience. Here is a example of requiem, in stock skyrim you could have leather armor on no helmet, and could have over 100 arrows sticking in you and still running around like you were boromir on meth. In requiem if you take one arrow to the face, your prolly gonna die, but it works both ways, if you snipe a person with a arrow in the face they die. http://skyrimgems.com/ that site will help you tweak the game to your liking
If you want to be a vampire your gonna need better vampire, if you want to be a were wolf you def have to get Nature of the beast 2. Nature of the beast 2 adds in smelling as a tracking system, and a whole bunch of other goodies.
Also dont forget a follower mod, the stock system is really bad.
Good luck lol, there are alot of mods but its worth it. As i said after spending so much time in modding the game, i tried to play the stock on my ps3, and i made it 10 mins in and quit lol.
Also a must is http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/9557 which is a better start mod, dont worry you arent missing anything good with beth start. In fact beth start is so terrible, i give it 10 thumbs down lol. I honestly though think skyrim is a terrible game, with bad design shitty everything. The whole game needs to be modded for me to play. The engine is a shitty one to, so it can be hard to get some of them to work right.